


keep the shadows out of my eyes

by sybilius



Series: Space Palemates [1]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: (or can be read as that), Aesthetic involving floating hair, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Haircuts, Military Stoicism, My agenda is entirely Give Lovelace a Hug, Post e26: Do No Harm, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Trust, Zero Gravity, palemates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-10 21:29:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15957917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sybilius/pseuds/sybilius
Summary: With her communications officer on the mend, Lieutenant Minkowski does her best to build trust with her 'visiting' captain. She ends up finding something she can help with.





	keep the shadows out of my eyes

**Author's Note:**

> My boyfriend had a headcanon that Lovelace had a shaved head, and I liked it, so I decided to write my own take on it. You can read this as Minlace if you want, either is fine with me :) I think of Minkowski and Lovelace as budding palemates, I've decided. We'll see if my thoughts change.

Renée Minkowski thanked her lucky stars for mechanical duty she was profoundly unqualified for. And seaweed coffee.

Sure, she’d rather be following military protocol with a healthy and entirely trustworthy crew, on a ship that wasn’t put into the soul-sucking vacuum of outer space by shady megalomaniacs. But for now, her communications officer was on the mend, and she’d finally come to something more than an uneasy truce with their...visiting captain.

“Okay, let’s see if we can’t put a few more points of stability onto this pressurization system,” Lovelace lifted up the part of the hull with a careful respect it probably never received as a part of the _Hephaestus_. She brushed her hair out of her eyes.

“Roger that, Lovelace. Eighty-seven percent can definitely be improved upon.”

“That’s the spirit,” she sounded pleasant, grateful even. Her brown eyes flickered with an intense need for activity, reminding Minkowski again how nice it was to have someone competent on board. That is, when she wasn’t spewing paranoid nonsense. They worked silently for at least a few minutes, lubricating all the easy to access parts.

“Goddamnit,” Lovelace muttered under her breath, tucking a stray curl behind her ear, “Sorry.”

“No rush, for once,” Minkowski says easily. She’d noticed that the captain had been tying back her chaotic dark hair, trying to tuck her bangs but to little avail.

“I should have cut it a few days ago but --”

“I know, a lot happened,” even Minkowski’s usual crew-cut had become more of a messy pixie.

“It’s not that, it’s-- oh, maybe swap out that bolt there. Hera, is that safe to loosen?”

“Affirmative, Captain Lovelace. And it looks to be in bad shape, too,” Hera had mellowed out to Lovelace in the past few days following...whatever they were speaking about while Eiffel was coughing out a lung and half his circulatory system. Minkowski can’t say she she isn’t curious. But she also can’t argue with results, and whatever Hera told her has put a lot more cards on the table.

Not all of them, though.

“It’s not what?” Minkowski asked as Lovelace drilled out the screw with her usual efficient zeal.

“Oh-- it’s nothing, really,” there was an undertone of distance in Lovelace’s voice, a cadence that Minkowski is just starting to learn to listen for, “I’ll get it done in a few days if there’s nothing else that needs doing and Eiffel hasn’t recovered.”

Minkowski searched in the toolbox for the right size screw, searching internally for the right words, “If it’s ever something you want to talk about…”

“It’s nothing,” Lovelace repeated mechanically, “When the meteor shower hit early and we lost Fis-- lost the first of many of my crew, I was just coming off of cutting my hair. Doing the logs. Usual stuff.”

She tightens the screw with the same precision that she delivers the information, “It was the first loss I had. So there were many stupid things I avoided coming back to, even after my arm healed. Pointless superstition. But I waited too long. When I tried to cut it again, after we’d cleared out Fisher’s room -- it just felt like that time would be better used running more diagnostics. Double-checking medical reports, sending out more distress signals-- anything, really.”

“Repairing marginally reliable pressurization systems?” Minkowski asked gently, and Lovelace’s veneer cracked a little. She smiled like glass. It was almost pretty.

“Let’s see how she runs. Hera, can you?”

“Already on it, Captain. Pressurization check in three seconds. Please stand back.”

The two of them took the requisite few steps back, in case of unexpected explosion. The pressurization system chirped, then let out a satisfying hum, even more gentle than the first time they’d got it online. A definite improvement.

“All diagnostics checking out, stability up six and a half percent,” Hera chimed in.

“Well. Looks like that’s all set to go as well. I better stop avoiding what needs to be done.”

“Do you want help?”

“What do you mean?” Sure, there was a fair amount of suspicion in her voice-- but there was also enough uncertain disbelief that Minkowski pushed on.

“I cut Eiffel's hair once, when it was so far past regulation that it was a hazard even for working with radios. If it helps, I could do yours,” Minkowski managed it with an air of detachment. Lovelace’s gaze softened, but she still looked skeptical. Minkowski supposed it was a bigger deal than she was making it out to be, “but you don't have to, that's a lot of trust to ask.”

“It is. But. It's not seeming any worse than doing it myself,” she half-shrugged, failing to make it look casual, “if you don't mind giving it a try.”

“I'd be happy to,” Minkowski couldn't remember the last time she'd smiled this softly.

Minkowski hadn't been to Hilbert's quarters since Lovelace had moved in-- but it didn't surprise her to see that it hadn't changed a bit. Neither Hilbert nor Lovelace were big on decorations, notes to self, evidence of human life…there was just a rigid neatness to it. Sleeping quarter straps neatly tucked away. Laptop computer humming in sleep mode, locked, no doubt. 

Oh, and a pair of scissors magnetically stuck next to the tiny mirror on the wall.

“You ready to do this?” Minkowski strapped herself in to the chair magnetically attached to the floor. Some things one could get by with floating and spinning a little, but for this it was easier if some part of your body stayed grounded. Lovelace glanced back from the tiny round window, floating over to her chair.

“Okay. Did you bring a razor?”

“Yep,” Minkowski had hers, after giving it as best a cleaning as she could.

“Just. Turn it on first.”

Minkowski did, watching Lovelace’s jaw twitch while she sat with the mechanical buzz. The batteries held out well.

“Let it go for a minute.”

Minkowski obeyed, loosening her grip to let the device float of its own accord. It was definitely a minor electrical hazard, but neither of them said anything, simply watched the angular momentum build and settle to a gentle spin.

“First things first, then,” Lovelace said after a moment, pulling her hair back in a tie, “Let's just. Leave that on and deal with what we have to. Scissors?”

Minkowski held up the small scissors that she'd plucked off the wall. Lovelace almost took them, but stopped herself, curling her fingers and swallowing down her throat, “Okay just. First cut off everything I couldn't tie back. Then I’ll. I’ll see about the shaving.”

“Okay,” Minkowski brushed Lovelace's forehead carefully, a little shock going through her when she touched the skin. Snip, snip snip. She caught the curls in her other hand. It wasn’t neat, but it would do the job.

“How do I look?” Lovelace blinked so innocently that Minkowski's face dropped, “Oh I'm kidding, Minkowski. I'm not doing this for looks.”

“That's good, because my skill with scissors is limited and purely functional.”

“This is already great. Okay. You can try the razor. I haven't shaved my head since but-- I liked it that way. Doesn't get in the way.”

“Okay,” Minkowski shifted her chair, then placed a hand in Lovelace's hair first, carefully. Then she prised out the hair tie, almost without thinking about it. It felt like years since she'd touched another human being’s hair, despite the great Eiffel grooming only being a handful of months ago. That was an odd thought.

“You ready?” she plucked the razor out of the air. Through the window, the burst of a small solar flare threw a little bit of light in the room.

Lovelace didn't flinch, “Do it.”

“Alright.”

She took a deep breath, and ran the razor from the middle of Lovelace’s forehead down the left side of her face. She could see the lines in Lovelace’s neck tightening, relaxing. She pulled the razor up. The strip of hair floated freely. Lovelace glanced up, then back to Minkowski, both of them letting out a breath Minkowski hadn’t noticed she was holding.  

Minkowski couldn't help it-- she laughed. Then Lovelace laughed too, nudging her hair to launch across the room like a small wave, twisting and shimmering in the light of Wolf 359.

Minkowski got ahold of herself, “Sorry, sorry, I don’t know why I’m laughing.”

“Don’t be sorry about that. It’s good to.”

“Didn’t want you to think I was laughing at you.”

“I know you’re not,” Lovelace tilted her head, “You want to keep going?”

“For sure,” Minkowski finished a few more strokes, catching the locks and stuffing them in a trash bag. The first curls have split into four pieces, tumbling through the air like peculiar pieces of ash.

“I know I said it before but -- thanks again for coming in and saving Eiffel when you did. Even Hilbert-- Selberg was losing his grip. I thought for sure we were going to lose him.”

“I’m thankful I did too. I know there were a lot of deaths from my crew that I couldn’t prevent -- probably all of them.”

“Oh, more than probably,” Minkowski said seriously. Lovelace paused, then seemed to at least try to agree.

“But I could have saved Eiffel, and I did. And I almost screwed that up because I was so obsessed with--” she tapered off, gesturing vaguely, “Anyways, it’s Hera you should thank. That’s more than I’ve been able to do in a while.”

“You’ve. You’ve done more for all of us than you could ever know,” Minkowski rounded the edge of her ear with the razor. She could feel Lovelace’s neck heat up, but didn’t say anything about it. They both fell to a reflective silence for a few minutes. The left side of Lovelace’s head was entirely shaven, her scalp pleasantly smooth. Minkowski brushed off the base of her neck, placing the razor to the lower nape.

“Stop, stop! Turn it off!” Lovelace struggled with the straps on her chair, knocking Minkowski's arm away.

She switched off the razor, “What is it?”

“Did you hear that…?”

“Hear what?” the station was silent as ever, and then, another one of those usual creaks, “maybe the plant monster?”

“I...I don’t know,” she narrowed her eyes, cocked her head as if straining to listen, “I guess it was nothing. Damn it.”

Lovelace sat back down in the chair, hands gripping the straps too tightly. Minkowski wanted to reach out and rub her back, try to comfort her but _words_ didn’t seem like enough. Nor did any of the bracing speeches they’d taught her in the academy. Lovelace had probably heard all of them anyways, maybe giving one to herself right now.

They didn’t do much good. Or so Minkowski thought.

“Do you want me to keep going?”

Lovelace ran a hand from her shaven head to the thick mass of hair on her right side. She stood up, pushed off to take a look at the mirror, and pulled the remainder of her hair aside. “Actually, I like it. It feels nice to have some of it off, but taking it all of feels like...going back to something I don’t quite have anymore.”

“You sure? It’s no trouble--”

“I’m sure. Thank you, Minkowski. It does look pretty, actually.”

“It does,” Minkowski meant it. The asymmetry mellowed her somewhat, but the shaved head brought out her razor-sharp nature. It went well with her glass smile. Minkowski hoped that someday, she’d get to see Lovelace’s real smile. But for now, she plucked a curl from the space that had made its way back to them.

“A fashion statement to bring back home. Now. Let’s go see if there’s anything more to be done on your ship.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear what you thought of this story!! Though please keep spoilers to a minimum, I am only just finished up season 2 :)


End file.
